


Your Heart I Will Choose

by Neuqe



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Prompt Fic, Rarepair christmas fic, Rings, the tiniest amount of angst possible
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-27
Updated: 2016-12-27
Packaged: 2018-09-12 17:59:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9083263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neuqe/pseuds/Neuqe
Summary: The five rings Nate and Ray exchange: artifact, joke, promise, engagement and wedding rings.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I was insipired by tumblr user Seiya-starsniper's fic idea for the 12 days of Legends of Superflarrow rarepair christmas, and this was the result.

**1.**

The first time Ray gives Nate a ring is after a mission.

It was quiet in the library of the Waverider.

They had just finished fixing a time aberration in Medieval Sweden, and all of them had their own ways to deal with post mission stress.

Nate had to do something. He had too much adrenaline in his body and got anxious if he did not do something right after the mission. 

This time, he decided to clean up the library. It was a complete mess from their latest mission research. Books covered almost all the surfaces, and Nate almost stumbled over a huge book about Medieval Medicine because someone had decided to put it in the middle of the floor.

“Hey, do you need help?”

Nate turned around to see Ray leaning to the doorframe of the library. He looked exhausted, but he was still smiling.

Nate glanced around himself. He could see more books than floor. He did not dare to look at the tables yet. He pointed Ray with his finger.

“I really hope you mean that because I do need help.”

Ray grinned. He was looking suspiciously happy to organize a bunch of old, dusty and heavy books.

“How’s the suit?”

Nate continued to pick up the books from the floor. He hoped Ray’s atom suit was functional again. The right arm of it had jammed quite spectacularly after being stabbed repeatedly with a huge sword. He could not help but feel still somewhat guilty about what happened to Ray’s previous suit. He did not want Ray to lose his suit again.

“Works again,” Ray confirmed with a radiant smile, and kept piling books to the top shelf. Nate did not have the heart to tell that those books were not supposed to be there. He was just grateful that someone helped him.

“I’m planning to improve it. It could withstand a little bit more stabbing,” Ray continued.

“Or you could avoid situations where you get stabbed,” Nate offered, “it’s not a bad idea.”

With all the time travelling and fighting they kept doing, there was always a little chance of getting stabbed but Nate could not shake off the feeling of hollowness he had felt when he saw Ray being stabbed, and he could not do anything about it.

Ray shrugged with a completely innocent expression. “Point taken.”

They worked in silence for a moment, and soon the room started to look less like someone would have blown up a bomb there.

“I didn’t come here to help you,” Ray blurted out suddenly.

Nate shot a suspicious glance at him. He put down a pile of books to the table, and turned around to face Ray, who looked uncharacteristically nervous about something.

“Anyway, the real reason why I came here is that I wanted to give you this,” Ray said quickly, and handed a ring to him.

It was an old ring, and it seemed slightly worn out. It was simple and made out of silver. A thin and wavy line was carved to its sides. A small silver star decorated the ring. The star reminded Nate of the star on his own suit. The ring, however, was unmistakeably medieval.

Nate glanced up from the ring. “You stole this?”

He was aware that Mick and Ray kept stealing things during their missions for reasons that were unclear for him.

“Yeah,” he answered with a sheepish smile, “just for fun, mostly.” Ray continued as if he could read Nate’s mind. “It reminded me of you.”

That was the last thing Nate expected to hear.

“You stole this for _me_?” Nate asked, dumbfounded.

“Yeah,” he chuckled, “I usually take few of things that I like, and that just reminded me of you.” Ray continued as if it was the most obvious reason in the world.

“It’s yours to keep if you want,” Ray explained, and his smile wavered slightly.

“Thank you,” he said sincerely.

The ring was nice. Nate was not usually fond of rings but he liked this one. He liked the thought even more, that Ray had seen something and thought of _him._ It made him feel like he belonged. Sometimes he felt like an outsider because the team had gone through a lot together before he and Amaya joined them. Ray, however, had always made him feel like he belonged right there.

Ray’s smile was beaming.

**2.**

The first time Nate gives Ray a ring is during 1980’s in an ugly bowling alley.

The eighties is not the decade Nate would have been dying to time travel to. He has lived through it, it is not exciting, and the clothes they are wearing are garish and ugly. Besides all of that, they have been stuck at the bowling alley for _three_ hours. Sara found a clue that the man whom Damien and his speedster friend would target next would come to that particular bowling centre, and it was crucial that they would save the man.  

Nate started to doubt that Sara’s source had not been reliable. They had tried to kill time by playing all the slot and game machines that were in the lobby of the alley. All that Nate had won from those was a lame candy ring.

Now, they had moved to the restaurant of the bowling alley. He was not sure whether the biggest reason was that Ray and Sara started to be hungry or because they needed to avoid being suspicious.

“Pineapple and pizza don’t go together,” Ray argued, and looked at Nate’s plate with disgust.

Nate rolled his eyes. “Pineapple is one of the best parts of a pizza.”

“It’s a fruit.”

“I’m seriously questioning your life choices right now,” Nate commented.

Ray laughed. “You are the one who makes the bad decisions here.”

“Do you even hear yourselves?” Sara asked from other side of the table, “you two sound like an old married couple.”

Nate was about to deny that but Ray was faster than he was.

“We kinda do,” he said.

Nate glared at him, and he shrugged.

“We can bicker about this as well if you want to,” Ray joked with a brilliant smile.

“Please don’t,” Sara commented as she ate her pizza.

“Well if we are an old married couple,” Nate said with a whimsical smile, “I guess we need a ring.” He reached to the pocket of his trousers, and pulled out the Ring Pop he had previously won. “Marry me?”

The ring was ugly. The lollipop part of the ring was mixture of yellow and orange, and those colours did not match at all with the bright green plastic part. The confusion on Ray’s face lasted a split second before he broke into an enormous grin.

“Of course,” he said without hesitation. He laughed as he put the ring on his ring finger.

Nate could not help but join in his laughter. It was a complete joke but he liked seeing Ray happy, and Sara’s face was priceless when he showed the ring to him as if it was a real engagement ring.

“I guess you could say we updated our bromance to a bromarriage,” Nate remarked.

Ray chuckled and high fived him. “To new levels of being in bro love.”

“Can we just please focus on the task at hand,” Sara said as she buried her head into her hands.

**3.**

The next time they actually swap rings, and it is no longer a joke.

Their relationship was still new, and everything of it was exciting, frightening and brittle. Nate did not want to mess it up. He wanted to make it work.

Couple of days ago, they had had a lengthy discussion about their relationship and feelings. Ray had told that many of his recent relationships had ended in heartbreak, and that he was afraid that would happen again.

Nate understood Ray but he also wanted to reassure him that their relationship could work. He had got an idea right after their conversation, and two days ago it had felt like a good idea. Now, he was not so sure about it.

He had bought them matching promise rings during their latest mission. He was slightly regretting that decision because the whole point of their conversation had been that they would not rush into anything and that they would give each other’s all the space they would require. Now, he was there, giving Ray a promise ring, after seven weeks of dating.

He jumped nervously few times and took a deep breath before entering Ray’s quarters.

He was wearing his pyjamas, and was sitting on the edge of his bed. He was eating cereals straight out of the box, and a book was next to him on the bed.

Nate knocked on the doorframe.

Ray looked up from the cereal box, and grinned. His grin was joyous, but it disappeared as quickly as it had appeared.

“Are you okay? You have that wrinkle between your eyebrows that you get every time you are nervous,” Ray said, and made a vague gesture towards his face.

Nate touched his forehead self-consciously, and had every intention to deny everything but realised that Ray was correct. He sighed.

“Wanna talk about it?” Ray asked, and moved the book away from the bed. “I can even give you these cereals.”

Nate laughed, sat next to him on the bed, and filled his mouth with cereals.

“The reason why I’m nervous is stupid and completely self-inflicted,” Nate started, “okay that sounds more dramatic than it is.”

Ray remained silent but kept eating the cereals.

“So after our conversation, I started to think about us and I got this idea,” Nate continued. “I would like to promise that I’m not gonna break your heart but these things are not always up to us.”

Ray nodded. He looked at the floor instead of Nate. He seemed wary, and reluctant to hear what Nate was going to say.

Nate took his hand into his.

“I have no intentions to break it. And I wanted to show you that I’m serious about this and us,” Nate explained, and reached to his pocket. He pulled out the promise rings and placed them into Ray’s palm.

The rings were simple and made out of silver, and thin. There were engraved small pattern on the sides of it. The patterns were slightly different but they matched with each other’s if one looked at them carefully.

“They are promise rings,” Nate blurted out, “the Ancient Greeks already used the rings as a symbol of thinking someone and as a symbol of a promise and a pledge, but nobody knows how old the idea of actual promise ring is. They are actually quite recent-“

Nate stopped abruptly talking because Ray was looking at him.

“Right, not the time for a history lesson.”

Ray laughed, and shook his head. “That was actually fascinating.”

He hummed. “Anyway, I thought that a ring could be a token of promising that I’m in for this for the long haul and rings kind of are our thing,” Nate said with a small laugh, “but then I realised this is actually the opposite of taking things slow, and you don’t have to wear it if you don’t want to.”

Ray remained silent for a while but he was smiling. His smile was full of hope. He looked at Nate again, and his smile grew bigger.

“Of course I want,” Ray said, and slid the ring into his little finger. He offered the other one for Nate. “You want yours?”

Nate nodded, and let Ray to put the ring into his little finger.

“You don’t think I’m over stepping some boundary here?” Nate asked.

Ray shook his head. “No, it’s corny, for sure. But it’s touching that you acknowledged my fears and insecurities.”

“Of course,” Nate answered with conviction, and pressed a kiss against his shoulder. “You’re such a sap.”

“Says the man who buys promise rings.” Ray laughed.

“Only for you,” Nate mumbled, and pulled Ray into a kiss.

**4.**

The fourth time, it is Ray who has bought the rings, and Nate discovers that his boyfriend has no sense for timing.

There were lot of things Nate had not expected when he had joined the team. The amount of research he still had to do, how they managed to start a bar fight everywhere they travelled to, and that they are incapable of fixing any time aberrations without someone being kidnapped.

It was his and Ray’s turn to suffer the kidnapping.

The place was a dump even by the standards of 1910. It was some sort of large industrial hall with serious case of water damage. The huge windows caused the hall to be drafty and damp. Nate loathed the place. It did not help to improve his mood that he was tied tightly in a chair and Eobard Thawne was staring at him with a smug and disdainful smirk on his face.

Ray was next to him, on the left side, tied into a similar chair, but he was still trying to squirm out of the ropes. Nate had already deemed that to be useless but Ray had too much optimism to admit that.

Thawne had not spoken a single word since he had brought them in, and Nate was not sure whether he should have been relieved or not. His constant staring was starting to get creepy.

He did not have to wallow in his thoughts for too long because Ray broke the silence.

“Nate?” His voice was gentler than usually.

He turned his head. Ray had a nasty looking cut on his forehead, and half of his face was covered in dried blood. Nate felt sick.

“Yeah?”

“I have a question,” he said slowly.

Ray looked nervous. Nate did not know whether his nervousness was caused by the fact that they were once again kidnapped by a psychopathic speedster or was it because of the question he wanted to ask.

“Ask away,” Nate answered, and smiled reassuringly.

He took a deep breath and flashed a smile. “So, just you know, I planned to ask this in totally different way but I never seem to find a moment to do it. Ironic, isn’t it? A time traveller cannot find time to do things,” Ray rambled.

“But because nobody knows how much time we have left,” Ray said, and quickly glanced at Thawne, “I want to ask it when I have a chance.”

Nate was completely clueless of what Ray meant and kept staring at him with a puzzled expression.

“Will you marry me?”

Nate was convinced the time stopped for a second. There was a complete silence, and they just kept staring at each other. He was convinced he could not have heard Ray correctly. There was no chance he just proposed him.

“What?”

“Will you marry me?” Ray repeated with more conviction.

Nate was too astonished to say anything. His mouth was not cooperating with his brain. The words died in his throat.

“You don’t-“

“Yes.”

The words were out of his mouth before he even realised it. He did not regret it, not at all. His face broke into an enormous grin when he realised he managed to answer.

“Really?” Ray asked with laughter.

“Of course,” Nate answered with a nod. “I-“

Nate was not able to finish because Thawne apparently decided this was the part where he joined the conversation.

“Are you kidding me?”

Nate had never seen Thawne being caught off guard and confused, but apparently, the proposal had been too much for him.

Nate shrugged as well as he could when he was tied to the chair. He was aware that their nemesis had both of them captured in an industrial hall, and could potentially kill them if they annoyed him, but he could not stop grinning. His happiness was stronger than his common sense.

“Not the best timing, that I can admit,” Nate said, “but I’m not about to turn down a proposal just because you are standing there.”

“Bad circumstances,” Ray confirmed.

Thawne looked as if he wanted to say something else, but a loud explosion disturbed him. It seemed to occur right outside of the hall because the windows were shattering. Shouting, more explosions, thumps and gunshots followed. Nate was sure rest of their team had just arrived.

Thawne looked at the door of the hall with a distraught expression.

“You might want to check that out,” Ray said.

Thawne looked at Ray strangely, and Nate got a bad feeling about it.

“Don’t-“ Nate tried to say but he was too slow. Thawne had already punched Ray into face. He appeared to be unconscious.

Nate felt numb, but predicted that he would suffer the same fate, and turned into steel before Thawne punched him.

“We can do this for the whole day,” he lied. He had no idea whether he could survive a punch combined with Thawne’s speedster powers.

Thawne just stared at him.

Nate tried to shrug again. “Where would I be going? The ropes, remember?”

He looked at him again, but was apparently convinced as he disappeared with a red and yellow blur.

As soon as he was gone, Nate started to squirm out of the ropes again. “We are totally getting out of here,” he mumbled, even though the squirming did not help at all.

Luckily enough, Amaya emerged from the shadows.

“Yes, you are,” she said, and crouched to cut the ropes from Nate’s chair. “Are you guys okay?”

“Been better,” Nate said, rubbed his right arm, and nodded towards Ray, “he got punched.”

He could hear even himself how worried he sounded.

Amaya started to cut the ropes of Ray’s chair. “Let’s get you to the ship.”

***

Nate was startled from his thoughts when Ray gained consciousness. They were in the med bay of the Waverider, and Ray lied on one of the beds. Nate had just walked around the med bay as he waited Ray to wake up.

Ray groaned. “Why does it feel like my head has been hit by a truck a dozen times?”

“Because Thawne sucker punched you,” Nate said, and finally sat down on a chair next to the bed. He started to clean the dried blood from Ray’s face as carefully as he could.

“That explains it,” he mumbled, “are you okay?”

Nate nodded.

“Good,” he said, and squeezed his eyes shut. “I did propose you, didn’t I?”

Nate chuckled, and swiped the last stain of blood away from his forehead. “You did.”

“And you said yes.”

“I did.”

Nate was beginning to worry how hard the blow actually had been, but he needed to voice his other concerns at first.

“Did you really mean it?” He asked nervously, and was suddenly more interested in watching his own hands than looking at Ray. “The proposal I mean. Was it just a distraction for Thawne? Because if it was, it worked perfectly. Or was it just the immediate threat of death that made you-“

“Nate,” Ray said simply but gently, and fumbled for his hand. Nate fell silent, but looked up to see Ray smiling. “I love you.”

Nate let out a small and relieved breath.

“Is that good enough answer?” Ray asked gently without any sort of accusation.

“Perfect.”

“I have bought rings ages ago, and that proposal was maybe the fifth attempt,” Ray explained with a sheepish smile.

Nate shook his head. “That’s commitment.”

“I guess that is kind of the point,” Ray grinned. He reached to the pocket of his trousers, and pulled out a small black box. “After the third failed attempt, I was desperate enough to start carrying these with me all the time.”

“I have questions,” Nate said, “first, what was the fourth attempt?”

“Just before you got that allergic reaction from that Victorian oatmeal,” Ray explained.

“Makes sense. The second question, how you have not lost this box?” He asked, and examined the tiny box.

Ray laughed. “A good question. Maybe we should just put the rings into our fingers, so we don’t lose them.”

“Smooth,” Nate remarked but opened the ring box.

The two rings were identical. The rings were golden and thin. They appeared simple but they were beautiful.

“These are really,” Nate tried to find a suitable word, “great.”

“All of the other rings have been silver, so I assumed it was time to make some changes.”

He laughed, and cautiously took one of the rings out of the box. He took Ray’s hand into his, and placed the ring into his ring finger. Ray gestured him to give him the ring box, and placed the other ring into Nate’s ring finger.

They were both grinning uncontrollably.

**5.**

The fifth time they exchange the rings it is official and for life.

“Married,” Ray said. His smile was beatific.

The smile lit up his eyes, and Nate thought he had never seen anything more captivating and beautiful.

“We did it,” Nate laughed.

He could not believe they were married. For his defence, the ceremony ended only five minutes ago, and they were still aboard of the Waverider. The ceremony had been short but beautiful, and only their team had been present.

He felt light purely because of the immense happiness he was feeling. He could not stop grinning, and his stomach tingled. He kept touching, and fidgeting with his wedding band, as if he could not believe that the ring was there.

Their wedding rings were thicker than their engagement rings. The rings were golden and shiny. Somehow, they still looked slender. They engraved a few words inside of their rings, but they were the only ones who knew what those words were.

Nate pulled Ray into a hug, and rested his forehead against his.

“I’m happy.”

Ray chuckled. “So am I.”

Nate closed his eyes. “I love you.”

He was perfectly aware he had said those three words quite many times during the day but he could not stop saying them. He did not want to stop saying them.

Ray’s smile softened, and he closed the distance between them.

The kiss was sweet and affectionate. Ray eventually pulled back, and his smile was enamoured.

“I-“

He was interrupted by a loud and constant noise. The time aberration alert was going off.

Nate groaned, and placed his forehead against Ray’s again. “Do you wanna guess on scale from one to ten, how much I regret installing that alert?”

“I think eleven would be a safe assumption,” he mumbled, and pulled away from their embrace. “But think positively, we managed to finish the ceremony.”

“True,” Nate grinned. “Even on the first attempt without the presence of any psychopathic speedsters.”

Ray sighed. “You are never going to let me live down the proposal, are you?”

He shook his head, and beamed. “Not likely.”

“Of course not,” Ray said, “so, _husband_ , do you feel like fixing the history?”

“Always.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is the very first fic I have ever written about Steelatom, but it was so much fun to write, and somehow it ended up being this long. Also, about the halfway of the fic I realised I have no idea how to describe rings. Also, all the mistakes are mine and there are probably some because I'm a very tired bilingual person who wrote this fic mostly during the night time. Anyways, the title is from a song called "I get to love you" by Ruelle.


End file.
